Joy Best
I have always been a perfectionist. I found being a perfectionist as an artist challenging and detrimental to myself and my work. Since discovering art therapy and what it means to immerse myself in the creative process, I have tried to relieve the judgment I place onto myself and my art. I have tried to experiment and create art for myself, rather than for a grade. I have started doing art at midnight, to relax before I go to bed. And with this experimentation, my art has become more personal. It was during the heart of the pandemic when I began to express the facets of my identity through art: my Judaism, my queerness, my family. What are my relationships with all of these things? How do they connect or conflict?
“Wonder Woman”, Joy Best. 2020, wax paper pochoir, 6x8.
“Fireworks”, Joy Best. 2020, copper plate monoprint, 10x14.
“Papayas”, Joy Best. 2020, reductive woodblock print, 16x13.
“Leya and Basha”, Joy Best. 2020, woodblock print, 14x17.
“Avatar Aang”, Joy Best. 2020, woodblock print, 16x13.
“The Hard”, Joy Best. 2022, watercolor, 4x6.
“Your body is the least interesting thing about you”, Joy Best. 2020, acrylic, 4x6.
“The Drive to Virginia”, Joy Best. 2022, gouache, 10x12.
“Koi”, Joy Best. 2022, screen print, 12x15.
“Untitled”, Joy Best. 2021, collage, 7½x10.
“Untitled”, Joy Best. 2021, oil on canvas, 36x48.
“Teapot”, Joy Best. 2021, oil on canvas, 16x20.
“Avatar Aang”, Joy Best. 2020, woodblock print, 16x11½.
“Untitled”, Joy Best. 2021, acrylic pochoir, 6x8.
Joy Best
Art Therapy ‘22
Joy is a fifth year Art Therapy student, minoring in Gender, Sexuality, and Women’s Studies. She has always been interested in art since a young age. She took art classes after school beginning from elementary school through the end of high school, mostly working with clay. Those years were largely focused on learning and experimenting. Coming to college and majoring in art didn’t come as naturally as she hoped, the rigidness of studio classes was challenging. Engaging in art was now a stressful act, until she found printmaking. She found the process of wood carving and pochoir therapeutic and continued to practice these mediums at home during the pandemic. Joy hopes to attend a graduate program for art therapy within a few years and continue her involvement in the Philadelphia art scene.